A new educational campaign aimed at increasing younger women’s awareness of breast cancer could launch in time to correspond with Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said in a news release Tuesday that she wrote to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to request that the national campaign be fully implemented by October. Gillibrand co-sponsored legislation in the recently passed health care reform bill to create the campaign, and has asked for dedicating funding for it in the 2011 budget. She also is promoting several other pieces of legislation related to breast cancer treatment.

“Thousands of mothers, grandmothers, sisters and daughters in our state fall victim to this horrible disease every single year,” Gillibrand said in a statement. “We must recommit ourselves to the battle against breast cancer.”

New legislation Gillibrand is sponsoring would create a set of “best practices” for treatment and use reduced Medicare payments to penalize physicians who are not in compliance within three years. It also would require insurance companies to cover a minimum 48-hour hospital stay after a mastectomy, lumpectomy or lymph node removal surgery.

According to the American Cancer Society, more than 250,000 American women were diagnosed with breast cancer last year, And more than 40,000 people died from the disease. But the most recent numbers available from the state Health Department show Oneida and Herkimer counties had an age-adjusted breast cancer mortality rate well below the state average between 2003 and 2007.

The local rates were 19.2 deaths and 18.3 deaths per 100,000 residents, respectively, compared to 23.8 deaths per 100,000 statewide.

Since breast cancer is more common in older populations, weighting incidence rates based on information from the 2000 U.S. Census allows for more accurate comparisons between communities with different demographics, according to the Health Department website.

American Cancer Society spokesperson Amy Delia did not know why local numbers might be lower than in other areas, but said she did see a benefit in reaching out to younger women. Even though most women begin mammograms at 40, doctors recommend earlier screenings for some based on family history or other risk factors.

“While 40 seems to be that magical age for breast cancer, it’s very important that all women are aware of their bodies, aware of the risks and having those honest conversations” with their doctors, Delia said.

More information about breast cancer and the questions women should ask their doctors is available online at www.cancer.org.